The ‘Barbie’ Casting Directors Revealed The Actors Who Were ‘Bummed’ They Couldn’t Play Ken (And Allan)
Ryan Gosling is the Matchbox Twenty-loving king of Kens, but there’s more than (K)enough (K)energy to go around. In Barbie, different versions of Kens are played by, among others, Gosling, Simu Liu, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Scott Evans, Ncuti Gatwa, and Jona Cena as the long-haired mermaid Ken.
“They were definitely really different, but they had to feel like a cohesive group,” Barbie co-casting director Lucy Bevan told Vanity Fair about the search for Ken. “You wanted to cast people who were really going to get on and be great and enjoy it.” Other Kens were considered for the movie, including Saturday Night Live cast member Bowen Yang, Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy, and nepo baby Ben Platt, but because Barbie was filmed in London during the COVID lockdown, they weren’t able to make the travel schedule work.
“They were, I’m not kidding, really bummed they couldn’t do it,” co-casting director Alison Jones.
Even Allan — weird, pale Allan, the only Allan in Barbie Land — was a part that actors were heartbroken over. “Dear, dear Jonathan Groff was like, ‘I can’t believe I’m typing this, but I can’t do Allan,’” says Jones.
No offense to Jonathan Groff, but Michael Cera is the one true Allan, literally and figuratively.
(Via Vanity Fair)